Interpreting the Collections

William Logan: Documents

Logan journal, McGill University Archives
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The documents selected for the Written in Stone digital collection fall into several groups. First are Logan's personal journals covering his early fieldwork during the 1840s, held and digitized by the National Library of Wales, McGill University Archives, and the Toronto Public Library. Second are Logan's field notebooks from the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) records at Library and Archives Canada. Finally, there are the printed products of the Survey's work under Logan's directorship: the "Reports of Progress", the Geology of Canada, its accompanying Atlas, and the large-format geological map of Canada, all of which were published in the 1860s.

Logan notebook, Library and Archives Canada
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Researchers should also note that Library and Archives Canada's partner institutions hold further valuable materials related to Logan and the GSC. The Toronto Public Library holds additional journals, and the McGill University Archives has over 2,200 pieces of Logan correspondence as well as other manuscripts. The Earth Sciences Information Centre at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has many rare books that originally belonged to Logan, and a few manuscript items; the NRCan collections also contain some of Logan's tools and medals, as well as many of his collected specimens. At Library and Archives Canada, the Geological Survey of Canada sous-fonds R214-43-2-E (formerly RG45) is extensive enough to support research on many topics over a long time period.

Trilobite fossil collected by Logan in the Gaspé Source	William Logan's specimen basket Source

Logan describes one of his coastal voyages
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Although the principles of nineteenth-century geological surveying are straightforward, the multitude of stratigraphic and mineralogical names can be confusing to the non-specialist. However, because of the correlation between the manuscript and printed documents in these collections, it should generally be possible for researchers to determine the significance of observations recorded in a field notebook, for example, by comparing them to later accounts published in the annual Reports of Progress and in the Geology of Canada. The linked pages below contain more detailed information about each of these document types.

Journals
Notebooks
Geological Publications
Maps

Many of Logan's notebooks and journals include sketches
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